Chapter2
1021 Words
The walk to school felt surreal.
The morning air was crisp, tinged with the scent of pine and damp earth, just as I remembered. The streets were the same, the sounds of birds chirping overhead, the rustling of leaves beneath our feet. Everything was familiar—too familiar.
But none of it felt real.
I stole a glance at Elias beside me.
He walked with easy confidence, hands tucked into the pockets of his jacket, his face unreadable. His gray eyes flicked ahead, avoiding me entirely.
It was the first sign that nothing had changed.
I had woken up in my eighteen-year-old body. I had been given a second chance. But the past—the damage I had done—was still the same.
Elias still hated me.
The weight of that realization pressed against my chest, a slow, suffocating ache.
I had spent years convincing myself that he was the villain in my story, that his rejection had destroyed me. But standing here now, reliving this moment, I knew the truth.
I had pushed him away first.
I had been cruel, arrogant, manipulative. I had treated him like an inconvenience, like a stepping stone to power.
And he had learned to hate me because of it.
"Are you going to keep staring at me like that all morning?"
His voice snapped me out of my thoughts.
I flinched, realizing too late that I had been staring.
Elias arched an eyebrow, his smirk sharp, but his tone was flat—disinterested. Unimpressed.
That smirk used to send a thrill of satisfaction through me. A reminder that I could always get a reaction out of him.
Now, it just hurt.
"I wasn't staring," I muttered, looking away quickly.
"Right." His tone was laced with amusement, but there was an underlying edge to it.
It was so strange—he looked the same, sounded the same, but I could feel the distance between us, an invisible wall I had built with my own hands.
A wall that I had to break down.
We turned the corner, and the school building came into view.
My stomach twisted.
This was it. The place where my downfall had begun.
I swallowed hard. No. Not this time. I wouldn't let history repeat itself.
I couldn’t.
The moment we stepped inside, the hallway buzzed with life—students chatting by their lockers, laughter ringing through the air, the faint scent of perfume and cologne mixing with fresh notebooks and ink.
I barely noticed any of it.
Because the second we walked through the doors, every eye in the hallway turned toward us.
Or, more accurately, toward Elias.
A group of girls stood by the lockers, their gazes flicking toward him with poorly concealed admiration.
They weren’t subtle.
They never had been.
I clenched my jaw.
I had spent so much of my past life ignoring what had been right in front of me—that Elias had always been wanted. By everyone. That I had never been the only option for him.
But back then, I had been too proud to acknowledge it.
Too blind to see what I had.
I shook off the thought and focused on the real problem: no one else remembered the past.
I wasn’t just living in my old life.
I was the only one who knew it had already happened before.
Elias stopped by his locker, spinning the lock effortlessly. I hesitated for half a second before speaking.
"Elias—"
But before I could say anything, a voice interrupted me.
"Hey, Adrianna."
I stiffened.
I knew that voice.
Daniel.
I turned slowly, meeting the familiar blue eyes of the boy who had once been my greatest mistake.
Daniel Carter. The golden boy of our pack. Handsome, charming, the future Beta. The boy who had been so easy to manipulate—who had once become my pawn, my greatest weapon against Elias.
I had used him. Toyed with his heart.
And I had destroyed him, too.
He smiled at me, warm and easy. The same way he had smiled at me back then, before I ruined him.
Something sharp twisted in my chest.
I hadn’t thought about what it would feel like to see him again—this version of him, before I had broken him.
"Hey, Daniel," I said, forcing my voice to stay steady.
He tilted his head slightly, like he was studying me. "You okay? You look… different."
Different.
Because I wasn’t the girl he remembered. Not anymore.
I forced a small laugh. "I’m fine. Just tired."
"Late-night scheming again?" His voice was teasing, but I flinched at how close to the truth it was.
Elias let out a scoff.
I turned just in time to see the sharp flicker of annoyance in his eyes.
Jealousy?
No. Not jealousy.
Resentment.
Because he had always known, hadn’t he? He had always seen the way I used Daniel to make him suffer.
I had been cruel. Petty. I had wanted to hurt him.
And it had worked.
"You two should just kiss already," one of Daniel’s friends joked, nudging him.
My stomach dropped.
I expected Elias to roll his eyes, to brush it off.
Instead, his expression turned blank. Cold. Like he didn’t care at all.
"Do whatever you want," Elias muttered, slamming his locker shut. "Not like it’s my problem."
He walked away before I could say anything.
The ache in my chest deepened.
Daniel let out an awkward laugh. "Well. That was weird."
It wasn’t weird.
It was exactly how Elias had always reacted to me.
Because, in his mind, I had never belonged to him.
I had pushed him away, over and over again. And eventually, he had stopped fighting for me.
I let out a shaky breath, trying to keep my emotions in check.
This wasn’t just about making him love me again.
It was about undoing the damage I had caused.
But what if I was already too late?
What if, even with a second chance, fate had already decided my ending?
What if no matter what I did—he would never love me again?
- Writer
